A Black New Year
by MandyQ
Summary: Spend three New Years days with Sirius Black and his family. What was a family party like for Sirius at age 7? 12? 17? A look at crazy cousins and the ties that bind. Written for '07 HPLexicon writing contest. OneShot. Please R&R. TDH compliant.


**_DISCLAIMER_**: The game in this fic is all mine, as is the family in which the girls don't get to play. Everything else you will read outside of this disclaimer belongs to a lovely British woman named Rowling and those to whom she has allowed part ownership. I mean no harm and have made no money.

_written for the HP Lexicon writing contest #39 January 2007_

****

**_January 1st._**

**1967  
**  
"I get to play this time!" Seven year old Sirius Black was more than a little bit proud to make that announcement.

"Who says?" two of his older cousins sneered back at him from over the table where the game was being assembled.

"My father, that's who!" Sirius replied, pleased that he had an answer and that it was true.

"Uncle Orion!" his cousin Bellatrix hollered for his father in the next room. Orion Black, a middle aged gentleman with a stout figure and handlebar moustache, poked his head through the door from the parlor into the dining room. As soon as Bella saw his face she asked him; "Did you really tell Sirius he can play with us?" Orion nodded to his niece. Bella was the eldest of the Black cousins and therefore felt as though she had ought to have been put in charge of the game years ago. The fact was, she was the only girl who was allowed to play at all. Wands Conquest was a men's tradition in the Black family dating back several generations and the only reason Bellatrix was ever allowed to play was that she pitched a loud enough fit over it when she was eleven.

Bellatrix Black, now sixteen and in her fifth year of formal education, thought she ruled the roost when all of the Black cousins got together. She seemed to resent that any members of their parents generation were still interested in playing with them. Sirius, though, liked his uncle Alphard very much; much more, in fact than he liked many of his cousins.

"Only the first game, Sirius," came his father's answer. Sirius had known that he would only get to play one time tonight, but he was more than content with that. Normally he would have been allowed to watch the first match before being scooted off to bed with his four year old brother and any visiting children who were too young to attend school. This year, at least, he got to play.

"I know, father," Sirius called in reply. "An', will you some sit by me?" he added. Of all of the Black cousins, Sirius enjoyed Andromeda's company the most. She was a full six years older than he was, but she was nice to him in a way that the others just weren't. Her two sisters, one older and one younger, were mean and snotty to him in turn. Bellatrix, the elder one, made no secret of her desire to hex anyone who bothered her in the slightest and also made it clear that Sirius certainly bothered her. He'd spent most of his childhood afraid of Bella. The younger sister was called Cissy, although her given name of Narcissa seemed to fit her personality perfectly. She was a complete snot and she barely spoke to him. When she did speak, it was usually to call him out for some lapse in decorum like coming to the table with dirty fingernails or leaving his shoelace untied. Cissy was nearly as obsessed with propriety as Bella was with hexing people. An' was never like either of them. An' was helpful, and thoughtful, and smiled a lot; and she seemed happy to move around the table to the chair next to the one Sirius had claimed as his own for the course of the game.

The other cousins were claiming their places for the game as well. Sirius tilted in the chair next to his so that uncle Alphard could sit on his other side.

"Just in time!" called a pair of friendly sounding voices from the entry hall. Prewett cousins! Sirius had no real indication as to the exact nature of his relation to Gideon, Fabian, and Molly Prewett, although he did know that they were only ever over when they were spending holidays with their uncle Ignatius. The Prewett's uncle Ignatius was also Sirius' uncle Ignatius, so at least he knew what side of the family they were on.

"Gryffindor cousins," greeted a snarling, mousy-haired boy at the far end of the table over his mug of butterbeer. The two new arrivals just hissed at him. "If I'd known you lot were coming I'd have had more to drink," the boy added. Evan Rosier was really Bella, An', and Cissy's cousin, on their mother's side; but since everyone who they might ever have been related to seemed to descend on their family home on New Year's Day, Evan, who was one year older than Cissy, had been around as long as Sirius could remember. The prevalence of distant cousins on New Year's Day was something Sirius enjoyed when it led to Prewett cousins, but not as much when it resulted in Evan coming over.

Sirius didn't like the boy sitting next to Evan either. And he had no idea how they were related. Cissy had explained it once; something about Barty's grandmother being their grandfather's father's father's brother's daughter. Cissy had an amazing and annoying ability to track the relations of everyone she met and how those folks might relate to the Blacks. Barty was rarely around for New Year's Day parties, but his father, Barty Sr., had heard that Millicent Bagnold might stop by the house, and since she was rumored to be the next minister for Magic, and Barty Sr. was an extremely ambitious junior Ministry official, Sirius was stuck playing his first game of Wands Conquest with more than one person whom he could not stand.

"Where's Molly?" he heard An' ask the two Prewett boys as they seated themselves opposite her.

"She's spending Christmas at the Weasleys'," Gideon snickered back.

"Is it really as serious as all that?" Andromeda asked, her eyes wide as she reached behind her and pulled Regulus up onto her lap. The Prewett boys' older sister Molly was a full year older than Bellatrix and she'd been seeing this Arthur Weasley person since at least last Easter.

"It is," Fabian confirmed, nodding.

"Well, I'll be," An' exclaimed. "I had no idea. I'll have to corner Molly when we get back to school and get all the details she'll spare." An' waggled her eyebrows at Gideon and Fabian, who wrinkled their noses.

"Are we all ready?" Sirius heard his uncle Alphard call out as he entered the room from the servants entrance.

"Must you come through the kitchen, uncle?" Cissy asked him. "It's quite unseemly." Snob. Cissy was barely eleven years old, and yet she acted like she ran the place.

"That's where the chocolates are, Cissy," their uncle answered her, tossing a piece of candy toward her. Luckily, the little blonde caught the candy. She smiled and popped the sweet into her mouth.

"Thank you uncle Alphard," Cissy said to him.

"You are welcome," uncle Alphard answered her. "Shall we get started?" he asked, sitting himself in the chair Sirius had saved for him.

"Just getting the last of the wizards on the board," Bella answered. She had been carefully arranging the dozens of pewter figured across the board for more than ten minutes. The Wands Conquest game board was large enough that it covered the entirety of the dining room table, and the little armies had to be arranged just so; if a soldier was placed by accident into the wrong area of the board, he was likely to go insane and not be any use as a game piece ever again. "There are seven of us playing?" she asked, taking mental inventory of the room.

"Eight," Sirius' uncle Cygnus corrected her as he came ambling in from the drawing room. Cygnus Black was Bellatrix's father, and the one person Sirius had ever seen her be polite to.

"My apologies, father," Bella answered back. "You'll be the Byzantines?" she asked. Her father nodded.

Sirius had waited for this part all day. It had always been his favorite part of the game to watch before now and he'd been anxious to get to it as soon as his father had given him permission to join the game. They were about to claim their territory. The fun of Wands Conquest was getting your Wizard army to attack your opponents' Muggle armies without your own Muggle army causing you any grief. And it was important which country you got to play as.

"I'll be Byzantium," Cygnus affirmed.

"And I'm, Transylvania," Bella claimed.

"Poland!" Gideon called.

"France!" Fabian shouted not far behind.

"Can I be England?" Sirius asked. Bellatrix shook her head.

"Uncle Alphard is always England," she informed him.

"That's alright, Bellatrix," her uncle allowed. "Sirius can be England and I'll play as the Serbians."

"Thanks!" Sirius called to him, smiling brightly.

"I'll be Castille," Evan told them.

"I'll be the Hungarians," Barty said.

"Excellent," Bellatrix affirmed. "England goes first, Sirius," she told him.

Sirius was miffed all of the sudden. He wasn't sure just how to start. Everyone was passing around a stack of cards and each taking one from the top of the stack. When the pile came to him, he saw An' nodding in affirmation that he should take one. This ritual passed two more times until all of the players had three cards before them. Andromeda leaned in and whispered in Sirius' ear. "You get to go first, so you can play any of those three cards. Don't let anyone see what's on them, and then pick what you want to do," she explained. Sirius nodded and looked at the cards in his hand. One said 'domestic conquest', another 'attack' and a third 'indoctrinate'. He frowned and showed them to Andromeda.

"We shouldn't have let him be England," Evan posited. "We'll never get to battles at this rate."

"Hold on a minute, Evan," Andromeda asserted. "You didn't have any idea what to do when you played the first time, either," she reminded him. She bent down and whispered to Sirius again. "Okay," she said, "the domestic card puts your Muggles in your service for the next turn, so that no other army can attack you without both your Wizards and your Muggles fighting back. The attack card lets you roll the die to get the General's orders and try to conquer another player's Muggles. You can't fight anyone's Wizards until someone has conquered their Muggles, but you can't use it until you're within striking distance of another player's territory- which you're not at the moment. And the indoctrinate card doesn't do you any good until you've taken prisoners. That card will make all of your prisoners turn sides and fight for you. So which card can you play?"

"I'll play the domestic card," he announced to the room, flipping it over onto the table. The pewter Muggles standing on the cardboard England fell obediently in line behind the Wizard army.

"Okay," uncle Alphard affirmed. He flipped over a card and Sirius saw the word 'advance' written in the same calligraphy that the his own cards were. "Serbia will advance into Vidin," he announced. The lime green-clad pewter Serbians marched forward into the neighboring territory. Gideon was next.

"And the Poles advance into Breslau," he announced, flipping over another card reading 'advance'.

"The French take extra training in…" Fabian picked up a triangular die from the center of the table as he flipped over a card that read, 'improve skills'. He rolled the die and watched as it landed. "Hand to hand fighting," he said. The assembled men nodded.

"And since the Serbians are in Vidin on neutral territory," Barty said, flipping over a card that read 'attack', "The Huns will attack the Serbian Muggles!" Barty cackled as he reached for the large die in the center of the board. This was the part that Sirius thought was the coolest thing about the whole game. Barty picked up the hulking chunk of Ivory and cast it onto the board with a flourish. The die landed, and a miniature General popped from the number on the top. The General walked through the pewter Huns, all of them dressed in red with fur hats, and gave them orders in Hungarian that no one could understand. The Hungarian army then advanced across the border and in to Serbia, effectively slaughtering the tiny Muggles that sprung up from the board to meet the Wizard army.

"Sirius, Regulus, bedtime," called a pleasant voice from the nearby parlor. Regulus hopped down from Andromeda's lap and ran to his aunt. Druella Black was a pleasant enough woman, if a quiet one. Sirius was sure that Andromeda took after her, but he had no idea how her other two girls had turned out the way they did.

"Aunt D'ella!" Regulus called. Druella bent down and picked up the dark haired four-year-old and then turned again to the others.

"Did you hear me?" she asked. "It's eight o'clock, Sirius, time for bed. You too, Cissy."

"But mother!" Narcissa protested, standing from her chair with a scowl. "I'm eleven, that means I get to stay up this year," she asserted. Her mother shook her head slowly.

"No, Cissy," Druella corrected. "You can stay up next year, when you're home from school."

"It's not my fault that I was born in November," Cissy asserted. "If I'd been born in August, I'd be at school this year."

"Very true, Cissy," her mother agreed, "but you were born in November, so therefore you will not go to Hogwarts until next year. In light of that fact, and the fact that I will not hear any further argument, you will come up to bed now." Cissy narrowed her eyes and huffed loudly as she stepped out from behind her chair and took several steps toward her mother. "Sirius…" His aunt was looking right at him.

"My father said that I could play the first game," he asserted. Aunt Druella shook her head.

"Your father will be down in a moment," She informed him. "Until then, Andromeda can watch your place." Sirius snarled to himself, but he knew he had no choice in the matter. He looked overt at An', who shrugged and nodded and then he rose from his seat to follow his aunt out of the room and up the stairs. Like every year. It was just what the family did.

**1973  
**  
"We're in time for the fun part, I promise," Sirius reassured his two friends as they reached the door to his aunt and uncle's house. "We may have missed dinner, but they won't have started the game yet." This New Year's Day was going to be a bit odd for Sirius, and he wasn't fully sure how he was taking it. This was the second year in a row that the family festivities had been moved from his own home into the house of his uncle Cygnus and aunt Druella in Coventry. His favorite cousin, Andromeda, had run off and married more than a year ago, and the Blacks of Coventry were rarely seen out of their house ever since; even to attend a gathering hosted by the Blacks of London. The up side of the change in location was that the house in Coventry was much larger than Sirius' own house and he'd been allowed to bring along two of his friends from school.

He had been sort of the family joke ever since he'd been sorted into Gryffindor. Every Black in memory had been in Slytherin, and it was with no small bit of relief that he was able to bring along his two best friends from Gryffindor for this winter's holiday. He led his two pals into the dining room of the manor house, where the Wands Conquest board was being laid out.

"Well, hello there Gryffindor baggage," one of the girls called out as the three of them came into the room.

"Cissy," Sirius groaned in greeting.

"And who've you brought along?" she asked, regarding the two boys who flanked him on either side.

"This is Remus Lupin, and this is James Potter," Sirius answered gesturing in turn to the boy on his right and then on his left.

"Pleasure to meet you both," Cissy answered. Remus leaned over and whispered into Sirius' ear.

"You didn't tell me that SHE was going to be here," he said. Sirius chuckled.

"I forgot you had the hots for my cousin, Remus," Sirius whispered back. It was no secret that Remus Lupin had something of a crush on Narcissa Black. But then again, so did half of the student body. She was a tall, pretty girl of seventeen who never seemed willing to give anybody younger than she (or anyone not in Slytherin) enough notice to roll her eyes at them, much less to speak. The whispered conversation between the boys had obviously been worthy of her notice, however, as she smiled at the three of them and chose to comment.

"What's the matter, Sirius?" she asked. "Did you forget to tell your little friends here that walking into my house was akin to marching directly into enemy territory?" She chuckled. "I promise you two we don't bite," she assured them. "Please, have a seat." Cissy was nothing if not polite. It was just at that moment that Bellatrix chose to make her entrance.

"Well," she mused, "if it isn't the Gryffindor baggage." Sirius hated it when they called him that, but it had been his moniker since the day of his sorting. Now in his third year, he'd grown almost accustomed to it. "You're just in time to help set up the game," Bella informed them. She produced a wooden trunk from under the table and placed it onto the chair in front of her. She reached into it and removed thick, rolled-up piece of parchment. She unrolled it along the length of the table. They bunch of them watched as the map on the giant game board came into full relief before their eyes, growing mountains and valleys and moors and seas.

"Wands Conquest?" James asked, as he leaned over the table to study the game board.

"Yeah," Sirius answered as he crossed to the far end of the table to help get the pieces on the board. Remus, too was looking closely at the game board and his face looked as though he were thoroughly confused.

"It doesn't have Ireland?" he asked. Sirius shook his head, but Bellatrix answered.

"This isn't one of those cheap little sets you get in Jumblejoys," she informed them. "This is an original, thirteen-eleven Tinker Doolighan's hand made Wands Conquest set. There were only six of these completed before Doolighan died. One of them managed to make it into the hands of a member of the Black family and it's been ours ever since."

"Damn," James managed to say, as he watched the seas fill with water and Sirius began to pull the boxed pewter armies out of the trunk.

"Where is everybody?" Sirius asked Bellatrix.

"My husband and his brother are in the blue salon with my father and I would guess, by now, yours. Evan and his friends are out back passing around a bottle of Firewhiskey." Bella turned her head and hollered, "Evan! Tiberius! Chris!" she called. "Get your sorry arses in here!" Soon enough there was a parade of Slytherin boys marching through the door. Sirius' younger brother, Regulus, was with them. Sirius hadn't noticed Reg having slipped away, but it did not surprise him much that it had happened. His brother had become more distant than he could have ever imagined them being. Regulus had come to Hogwarts only this year and had been sorted into Slytherin, the same as all of the other Blacks before him; except Sirius.

Even as they set out the pieces for the family's traditional New Year's Day game, Sirius felt like his attachment to his family was becoming more tenuous. He was certainly glad to have his friends along with him. His fellow Gryffindors knew him better now than even his own brother. Sirius and Regulus had been close when they were smaller, but their relationship had become strained when Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor. Their relations had become further strained last year when Sirius had tried to explain to his brother why it was wrong for Andromeda to have been disowned just because she fell in love with someone her family didn't like. He tried to explain it as being the same as when Molly Prewett had married Arthur Weasley and they hadn't seen her since. Regulus had certainly missed Molly, and Sirius knew that his little brother would miss Andromeda.

But it was useless. Regulus had already been proselytized into the 'Black' way of thinking. The kid was a Slytherin through and through, even after only a half year's schooling. It hurt Sirius a little to see his brother, with whom he had once been so close, preferring the company of Tiberius Nott and Christopher Parkinson. But there was nothing that could be done about it, he supposed. He had less and less in common with any of his relations every day, and he truly wasn't at all certain how he was going to even manage dealing with Bellatrix for more than an hour. He was suddenly more glad than he knew he could be that he'd been allowed to bring his best friends along.

"I'm only playing the first game," Bellatrix informed them. "Or maybe two if one of you lot manages to win the first one. But I plan to go upstairs and join in the conversation with the adults as soon as I've beaten you."

"Can Gryffindors even play Wands Conquest?" Nott asked in as snotty a tone as Sirius could imagine. "I thought all of you lot loved Muggles too much to even play at wiping them all out."

"Oh, do be polite, Tiberius," Narcissa insisted, scowling at him. "You needn't try to frighten and annoy the other guests. We have Bellatrix for that." She smiled at the lot of them. Sirius heard Remus' audible gulp at Cissy's smile and vowed to tease him mercilessly for that later. "It'll be good for the little Gryffindors to be around when the Minister arrives," she posited. "It's so rarely that anyone of their humble station get to hob-knob with Ministers and the like."

Sirius wanted badly to remind his cousin that James' parents were quite wealthy; wealthier, in fact, than the London Blacks and with a fortune approaching that of the Coventry Blacks. However, money was not a subject that was discussed in the Black family, and Sirius knew that he'd hear no end of it from his mother when Cissy reported to her that he'd brought up something so 'indelicate'. And Cissy would certainly tattle. Of that he could be certain.

Cissy refused to abide even the tiniest social faux pas and had once hexed a school mate's robe sleeves so that he could not possibly put his elbows in the table in the Great Hall at school. He decided that it was a better course of action to hold his tongue as Cissy continued.

"Hopefully they'll get here in time for the next game," she told them. "Barty should be coming with his father, who will be coming with Minister Bagnold, and then he can be Transylvania after Bella goes to speak with the 'adults'."

"Look at little Cissy playing social director," Bella cackled. "You're going to make someone a perfect little society wife some day."

"Oh sod off, Bella," Cissy snapped. "What do you care what my ambitions are. Just because I have no interest in…" Her eyes suddenly widened and she turned to Remus and James. "I beg your pardon," she said to them. There she went again. Cissy was damnably polite, even when she hated the company. Sirius was almost thrilled to have heard her utter a harsh word to begin with. He watched as the two sisters exchanges snarls over the table and as his friends sniggered at the way the seventh years all openly enjoyed the idea of Narcissa as a 'society wife'.

"What are the 'adults' talking about in the salon, anyway?" Sirius asked, as he dumped the final pewter army out onto the table and watched them assemble ranks in the appropriate nation.

"What else?" Bella answered. "They're talking politics. Did you not hear that the Minister is on her way here? How thick are you all over in Gryffindor, anyway? There is a very influential Wizard who is making himself known as a supporter of the pure-blooded agenda and everybody who is anybody is making sure that they've got their opinions on straight."

"Pure blooded agenda," James grumbled under his breath. "Bloody Slytherins," he added in Sirius' ear. Sirius nodded.

"Ignore them," Sirius regarded Bella and the others. "It's just my family."

**  
1976**

"Hey Padfoot, it's the New Year!" James tossed a snowball through the window of the room they'd shared since July and made a face at his friend.

"Is it after midnight already?" Sirius stood and walked to the window.

"About five minutes ago," Remus Lupin called as he darted out in to the snow to join James. Sirius threw on his coat and went outside to meet the other boys. He nearly tripped over Wormtail getting out the door, but managed to get a snowball off at James nonetheless. James got another snowball in the air at Sirius, but Wormtail had managed to stand up directly in the way of it, and took the projectile directly between the eyes. Wormtail reached out and retrieved snow from the top of a frozen rain barrel and flung it right back at James, but missed as James lunged to get Remus.

"Hey Moony, better watch out," James called Remus by his nickname. "Padfoot's aim seems right on for once."

"Can it, Prongs," Sirius called back at James, using his nickname in turn. "My aim is just fine."

"Sure it is," Moony called back. "Hey Wormtail!" he added, tossing a snowball just at the right moment to get him squarely in the face as he turned.

"That was low," Wormtail claimed, looking for opportune snow to pack.

"Will you silly lot get back in the house, it's freezing!" The four of them turned to face James' mother standing in the doorway with a half-smile on her face and a dish towel in her hand. "There's breakfast," she informed them. That was enough to get the boys' attention. The four of them clambered past her and back in to the house. "There's no rush boys," Mrs. Potter insisted. "There's plenty for everyone."

The four of them crowded around the table with Mr. and Mrs. Potter, passing around baskets of popovers and plates of cheese. "I've never heard of having breakfast at midnight," Remus said to the others, "but I'm sure enjoying it."

"It's a tradition in this house," James told his friends. "We have breakfast at midnight to ring in the New Year with family and food." Sirius nodded. He took a heaping bite out of a bun and smiled.

"I think this beats the Black family tradition of spending the day trying to conquer the world through violence and subjugation via a board game," he posited. James nodded but then shrugged.

"You sure about that, mate?" he asked Sirius. Sirius nodded, his mouth full of pasty this time. "Too bad," James commented, "because I bought us a Wands Conquest set at Jumblejoys. It's not as nice as the one you're used to but…" Sirius smiled across the table at his friend. He looked around the room at the other smiling faces and gave James a nod. It would be nice to spend New Year's Day playing a game with his family. His real family; it was a very new year.


End file.
